Alikander99

Spain - 07-Nov-24 -

I guess I should do justice to the city my father lives in and write a review for this site, even if i doubt it will ever be inscribed.

I have gone to Plasencia more times than I care to count. Tbf to my father, who took me there every 2 weeks, It has a rather monumental historic centre which has been preserved pretty well. The city has kept a big portion of its medieval walls, there's multiple civil and eclesiastical palaces and of course there's the cathedral. Overall it's a pretty solid medieval small city, with a lively atmosphere and an enormous half finished cathedral. It's pretty though rather unremarkable.

Trujillo takes us to another period entirely. Extremadura was one of the poorest regions in the kingdom of Castille during the 15th century. It was also a heavily militarized region as it marked the border with Portugal. As such, when word spread around that a new route to the indies had been found and that the crown needed young adventurers to tame the land, extremadura was one of the first regions to respond. In short, many of the most famous conquistadores were extremaduran. This is the case of Hernan cortés, Francisco Pizarro, Nuñez de balboa, Pedro de Alvarado, Pedro de Valdivia, Hernando de Soto, Francisco de Orellana, etc. And it turns out that one of the most succesful (Francisco Pizarro) was born in Trujillo. When he came back to his hometown, he built a four story palace and named it "the palace of the conquest" a nice prelude of what was to come. The influx of money into trujillo crystalized into a monumental quaint old town which is indeed very pretty.

Monfragüe is one of the newest national parks in Spain and it has had a turbulent history. For a time they tried to make it a eucalyptus plantation, and there's still a few eucalyptus trees as a testament to the rampant need of 19th century liberalism to make every single acre of land productive. Nowadays, however, the park is best known for its extensive dehesas and huge vulture colonies. Indeed, the park has the world's largest colony of eurasian black vultures with over 600 couples. Even so Monfragüe is a bit of a black sheep in Spain's national parks list and only really shines through their birdlife. Imo it already received its fair share when it became a biosphere reserve and a Special Protection Area (SPA) under the EU guidelines.

There might be something worth salvaging of the tentative site, but as it stands, it lacks cohesion and a clear OUV to carry it through. It also faces signicant competition from caceres and the monastery of guadalupe, which share many aspects. Nevertheless it's a very nice region and I encourage anyone to visit. On the plus side food is amazing. If you go, don't forget to eat your weight in torta del casar, morcilla patatera and iberico ham.

Philipp Peterer

Switzerland - 19-Feb-19 -

I visited Trujillo on a trip to Extremadura. I did this even before I started caring about TWHS, just because the town seemed to be a nice place to visit and indeed, it was worth the detour. The town is the birthplace of Hernan Cortez, the conqueror of the Inka Empire and honours that with a statue on the main square. Additionally, his birth house was turned into a museum. Apart from that, Trujillo is a very beautiful little Spanish town with influence on South American colonial towns. The fortress overlooking the town is certainly a highlight, but the ensemble of houses in general is very appealing.

I did not visit the Monfraguë NP or Placencia and frankly, I don’t really get the connection between the sites. There are two towns and a national park. It seems to me Spain just took 2 FTWHS and a new place and packed them into one in hope to increase chances to get at least one inscription.

Trujillo is only around a 40mins from Caceres WHS and on the way to Guadeloupe WHS, so not much effort is needed to pick it up if you are in the zone.